Sicko Tangents ...

Editor's note: Another mostly non-sports blog. Sorry, what can I say? I spent the whole day driving up to River Falls for Chiefs camp. We'll try to pick up the defense blogs tomorrow.

I spent a big chunk of Sunday driving from Kansas City to River Falls, which means I spent a lot of time thinking about stuff like decency. Well, I actually spent a lot of time listening to the wildly underrated Ben Folds’ “Rocking the Suburbs” CD. That’s a good album.

I especially like, “Fred Jones Pt. 2,” which I take to be about an editorial cartoonist at a newspaper who has been shoved out after 25 years. I don’t know if this is what it’s about (I suspect not), but the lyrics do point this way. We know, for instance, that for “Twenty-five years/ he’s worked at the paper,” and we know from the end – when John Mcrae from Cake joins in – that Fred Jones is an artist of some kind. “Fred gets his paints out and goes to the basement.” He’s an artist of some kind. I’ll make the leap.

This fits my feelings at the moment because I have a good friend, an editorial cartoonist, who just a week or so ago was let go. Yes, we have a tangent coming. It’s both sad and a travesty what’s happening to editorial cartoonists in America. These artists were once the lifeblood of newspapers. The good ones could change the world. The cartoons of Thomas Nast helped bring down Tammany Hall in New York. That’s the most famous example, but there are many others. I can remember having my own opinions shaken and stirred by certain cartoons (I remember, for instance, being young and seeing a two-panel cartoon. The first panel showed a gunman sticking up a family, and it read, “Guns don’t kill people.” The next panel said “People kill people.” And it was the same gunman and the same family except now the man was holding up the family with just his finger. I’ve never again heard that statement without thinking about that cartoon).

Cartoonists are disappearing. It’s no secret that newspapers are struggling, and cartoonists are our canaries in the coal mine. Already many of the biggest and most respected newspapers in America have done away with local cartoonists – they are considered “luxuries.” Now, I’m no businessman. I obviously could not make the hard decisions necessary to run a newspaper in today’s world. But it breaks my heart to see an essential and unique newspaper tradition die. My friend is a tremendous cartoonist, good enough that though I often disagree with his opinions, I am moved by his ideas and the way he draws. Now, his newspaper will run the same syndicated cartoons every other paper runs. It’s the same story across America. It’s just another step, I’m afraid, toward newspapers becoming homogenized and, then, irrelevant.

OK, welcome back from that tangent. The original point is I was thinking in the car about lots of stuff, but mostly I was thinking about decency. You know there isn’t a week that goes by that I don’t get an email from someone who thinks I’m too nice in print. Of course, to be fair and balanced, there isn’t a week that goes by that I don’t get an email from someone who thinks I’m a complete jerk. So it’s isn’t unanimous that I’m too nice. But I’d say the “too nice” emails outnumber the “jerks.”

The “too nice” emails are not compliments – many of them are significantly nastier than the “jerk” emails. The writers as a whole don’t believe that I am really too nice. They are using “too nice” to mean that I’m “too soft,” a “wuss” or “sissy-boy” or, well, you can probably come up with more appropriate words. I understand the point. There’s this feeling that if I would be harder on the local teams, I might affect change – I could get bad managers fired, lousy general managers to quit, crummy owners to sell the club – and by being nice, I am in fact, allowing this legion of losers to get away with things. They believe that, in the sports realm, I am soft on crime.

I don’t agree with any of that – I think people are always looking for easy labels and “too nice” is mine – and anyway, I can’t change. I think there is only one unbreakable column rule and that is: You have to be who you are, no faking allowed. My column is – to the best of my ability – me. But I’m off on another tangent here.

The point is that I think there is a segment of society that believes that “too nice” means “pathetic.” Decency equals weakness. Sportsmanship is for losers. I realize that these three statements are quite different, but I think there are many strong believers in each.

Another tangent (I sure wish I could do those David Foster Wallace footnotes -- that would make this a lot easier): “Sportsmanship for losers” comes from an email I got a few years ago after the 2004 playoff game when Mark Bellhorn hit the ball off a fan’s chest in left field. It was (by replays, anyway) clearly a home run. But the ball bounced back into play. At first the umpire ruled it a double. They eventually conferred and changed it to a homer. A guy sent me an email about Hideki Matsui, who was in the outfield and clearly had seen that the ball was gone (his initial reaction showed that he knew the ball was gone). The emailer thought Matsui should have told the umpire he blew the call and that it was a home run. I thought this was interesting as in quirky as in crazy. And my first reaction (I’ll bet a few of you had the same reaction) was, “Are you insane? Could you imagine how they would react in New York if they knew Matsui had admitted that was a home run? They might have rushed the field.” My initial reaction was confirmed by several New York friends who said they would have been first in line. And there you go – sportsmanship is for losers.

ANYWAY, I was thinking about all this (it’s a pretty long drive). And it got me to the whole point of this blog which is: Michael Moore. You never saw that coming did you? I just saw the movie “Sicko,” and I have plenty of thoughts about it that I will not share because this is not a political blog. It is a promotional blog for my book! Really! Anyway at the end of the movie there’s a scene that cut through me. Moore had finished pronouncing (in his own inimitable way) that pretty much every country in the world, including Cuba, has a more humane health care system than we do. The sledgehammers were out.

And then Moore showed, what he called, “the biggest anti-Michael Moore Web site.” Apparently there are quite a few out there. This one, I take it, is the Louvre of anti-Michael Moore. Well it seems – and I may get some facts wrong on this, but I am shooting for the larger point – that one of the bloggers on this site was going to have to close down the thing because his wife was sick, and they owed $12,000 in medical costs.

Michael Moore in narration said that nobody – not even this guy he despises – should have to give up first amendment rights because America doesn’t have Universal Health Care. He anonymously sent the guy a check for $12,000 (he showed the check in the movie) and the site is still going strong today, tearing up Michael Moore.

Now, some things are obvious up front:

1. Michael Moore is obviously grandstanding here. Not only does he get way more than $12,000 in publicity for his check, but he gets to cast himself as the good guy against the anti-Michael Moore villain. That’s worth way more than 12 grand.

2. It made for a pretty arresting end to his movie, and I can tell you that if I had Michael Moore’s money, and someone said, “I’ll give you a good ending for your column for 12 grand,” there would have been plenty of times that I would have jumped.

3. He managed, for 12 grand, to make this anti-Michael Moore guy look small, probably the most priceless part of the whole thing.

So, all that’s a given. But … but, but, but, but. He did give this guy 12 grand. He did, best I can tell, change the dynamics of life for this family. He did an altogether decent and kind thing, even if his reasons were less so. I remember an interviewer once saying to Jerry Lewis something like, “Well there are those who say you only do these Muscular Dystrophy telethons for your own ego and to keep yourself in the spotlight. There are those who say you don’t care entirely about the kids; you care more about your own career.” To which Jerry Lewis gave one of the all-time brilliant answers. He said (I'm paraphrasing):

What do you care why I’m doing it? Am I raising millions to help sick children? What difference does it make what my motivation is?

I went to the anti-Michael Moore Web site to see how the guy was handling this obviously uncomfortable thing. I had to go back several weeks to find anything at all about it – mostly the site (as I read it) is filled with rather shrill counterpoints that paint Michael Moore as something between Ken Lay and the Devil, though not quite as honest as either one. Now, I really have no problem with this at all … the guy obviously feels it is his life’s calling to expose Michael Moore, and I think everyone should have a hobby. Eventually I found a blog referring to the check, and the blog (not surprisingly) talked about how Michael Moore had tried to manipulate everything with his money, it explained that this guy had received other donations from truly good-hearted people, and that anyone who thinks what Moore did was good or kind is a brainless sheep.

Well, that’s one way to handle it. I was thinking about this. I wonder how I would react in this guy’s situation. I’m not sure I feel that sort of animosity toward anybody, but if I think about it … OK, let’s say Ann Coulter. Let’s say I was doing the No. 1 anti-Ann Coulter Web site on the Internet, and then my wife got sick, and she (I mean Coulter here) anonymously donated the money necessary, and then she (Coulter again) wrote all about it in her newest book, “Why Liberals Should Burn at the Stake (Drowning is Too Humane)” or whatever she (Coulter) might call it. How would I react? Would I stop doing the blog? Should I stop doing the blog? Should I write with a little less venom? Should I do exactly what I was doing before?

Here’s what I think I would do: I might write the same general blog, with maybe a touch more sensitivity. I mean, how could you help but see the person who altered your life with a different eye? But I would have a letter on the front page that read like this:

Dear Michael (we’ll move on from the Ann Coulter thing – I don’t really hate her either):

Thank you. It’s obvious that I do not like your politics or your methods. I feel it is important that I unveil what I consider to be your lies and contradictions. But I want to say here that, whatever your motivations, what you did helped my family. Thank you.

Is that weakness? Maybe it is. I don’t know.

Stupid is as ...

Editor's note: It was a hectic week, and so we sort of fell behind on Blogs. We'll pick up our defense blogs soon (I head for River Falls and Chiefs camp tomorrow, so there should be time for some blogging). In the meantime, I want to thank everyone who showed up at the Happy Endings Lounge in New York (and everyone who couldn't find the place -- heck, I had trouble with that) for some book talk. And I could not let this unbelievable Matt Morris trade pass by.

One thing that has always surprised me is, every now and again, and you really do come across pure, unadulterated, unfiltered stupidity in sports. This happens most often, I think, in the final, frantic minutes of any NFL game (or half). Nobody in the entire league seems to know how to save the clock. Nobody. Little kids who have been watching football for only a couple of years seem to understand the basics of clock management better than most NFL coaches. And I’m talking across the board here. I’ve watched genius Bill Belichick teams screw up the clock, I’ve watched hard-nosed Pittsburgh Steelers teams screw up the clock. I watched mastermind Mike Shanahan teams screw up the clock. And so on.

I’ll give you a local example: A few years ago, the Chiefs under the intense and watchful eye of then head coach Gunther Cunningham, faced a situation. I should preface this by saying that I have great admiration for Gunther. He has dedicated his life to football. He has studied the game with the same intensity and purpose that Charlie Parker spent studying the saxophone. He’s a very smart man and (I believe) a terrific defensive coordinator. If he was dumb, this story wouldn’t mean anything.

The Chiefs had one timeout left, they were trailing and the other team (I can’t remember which team it was – it doesn’t matter) had the ball and was trying to run out the clock. The other team ran a first-down play that ended with, if I recall correctly, 2:43 remaining. It might have been 2:44. The Chiefs then called a panicked and entirely worthless timeout. It is, in fact, the quintessential worthless timeout. I’m sure you as a football fan understand exactly why, but to spell it out: The NFL has a 40-second clock.

That means that:

1. If the Chiefs call their last timeout there with 2:43 left, the other team will run one play (which will last more then three seconds) and then let the clock drain right down to the two-minute warning.

2. If the Chiefs DON’T call a timeout there with 2:43 left, the other team still has to run one play before the two-minute warning.
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This is a pretty simple calculation, right? One play equal one play. You get absolutely no benefit from calling a timeout there. None. You would think that a coaching staff that studies hundreds of hours of film, a team that practices every single scenario dozens of times, veteran players who have played thousands of hours of football would understand this instinctively. But they didn’t, someone called timeout, and later when asked about it, Gunther (rather than saying: “Yeah, that was a major screw-up”) tried to defend the timeout and uttered one of the dumbest coaches’ statements on record.

He said that the Chiefs had to call timeout there because otherwise the opposing team would have “used up the whole 45-second clock.”

That’s right. To try and cover up his team’s brain-clog, he actually changed the NFL game clock from 40 seconds to 45. He turned a dumb mistake made in the heat of the moment into a gargantuan blunder which left fans, media and management wondering if the head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs actually knew basic NFL rules. He was fired as coach just a couple of weeks later, and while the firing may not have been directly tied to 45-second-meltdown, it was at least an indirect free kick.

Two years later, Dick Vermeil as head coach of the Chiefs made exactly the same clock mistake (Coaches really do this all the time; I’m telling you it’s shocking). Vermeil, though, had enough sense to say: “Yeah, we blew it there.” And the mistake – if not exactly forgiven – was at least forgotten.

I thought about all that this week when reading various quotes from Dead-GM-Walking Dave Littlefield as he tried to explain why his Pittsburgh Pirates, a horrendous baseball team, possibly the worst team in baseball, would trade for (and pick up the entire monstrous contract of) pitcher Matt Morris, who is almost 33, who has been an average-to-below-average pitcher for four years, and who is in a major slump (the last six weeks, he has gone 0-4 with a 7.94 ERA).

Now, to be fair, I’m not really sure there’s much Dave Littlefield can say. I would deduce that this was the panicked move of a general manager who knows that he’s about to be fired . He is willing to try anything that might shake up his team and get them to win a few games before it’s too late for him. And that wouldn’t really sound too good at a press conference (“Well, I’d like to say to the members of the press that I’m really in full fledged panic mode. I’m trying to save my job. Really. I don’t want to get fired. I really don’t. How would you like to get fired from your job? You wouldn’t, right? I mean, if you knew you were about to be fired, wouldn’t you at least try to give 15 to 20 million to Matt Morris too? Am I right or am I right? Who’s with me here?”)

Instead, he talked about how he sees Matt Morris as sort of a finishing piece for the Pirates rotation, the veteran who will inspire the kids, the seven of clubs that will complete the inside straight. Now, of course, this is ridiculous. But it’s not impossible. Let’s say this is true. Let’s say that Matt Morris really does spark a chemical reaction that gets Ian Snell and other kids to get going (bad early signs, I’m afraid, considering that Friday Snell gave up 10 hits and six runs in five innings – he’s now 0-5 with an 8.31 ERA in his last five starts).

Even if this convoluted plan did have some basis in reality, it still doesn’t explain anything. If he wanted Matt Morris, he could have gotten him for half the price. One third the price. There is absolutely no reason that the Pirates needed to trade two players (I don’t care if they are prospects or not) and pick up the entire salary (which includes $9.5 million next year and an impressive $2 million buyout) to get a struggling veteran pitcher that San Francisco Giants GM Brian Sabean was DYING to get rid of. I mean, this wasn’t a trade. This was an Oprah-like donation to the Save Brian Sabean’s Job Fund (Sabean is the curator of the National Museum for Obscene Contracts). Even Sabean afterward seemed entirely shocked and grateful; he looked like one of the numb people who open the door and find they have won the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes.

(Somebody in New York asked me, “How in the hell are the Yankees going to get out from under that death-defyingly bad Johnny Damon contract?” I said, “Well, first of all, they need Dave Littlefield to keep his job in Pittsburgh.” You could call it the “Littlefield Escape Clause”).

I like the Pittsburgh Pirates. I feel a strange kinship to Pittsburgh because I grew up in Cleveland and was raised to hate the town (and, especially, the Steelers). I guess I see Pittsburgh and Cleveland as two brothers who despise each other because they are so much alike … so they tear at each others throat. But they are still, in the end, brothers. In addition to that, I think the Pirates and the Royals have a connection as two teams that were 1970s icons, still seemed to be part of the game going into the Clinton years and then quickly faded into oblivion. The Pirates have not had a winning record since 1992. The Royals have had one winning record since 1993, but have lost 100 four times (the Pirates have lost 100 just once). It’s pretty bad on both sides.

So I would like to see the Pirates bounce back. I do think they have some pretty decent young pitching. I think they are in absolutely the right division to turn things around. And Pittsburgh is a terrific sports town. Right now, though, the key might be to get some new blood in there before Dave Littlefield strikes again. I mean no offense to Littlefield, who I’m sure if a fine man. But you would think that trading Chris Young for Matt Herges (and then releasing Herges months later), having five players taken in the Rule V draft one year, drafting Bryan Bullington with the first pick in the draft and then this year passing on Matt Wieters in the draft to save money and less than two months taking on the entirety of Matt Morris’ contract would be enough for any man.

It's like being 10 again ...

OK, I promised to describe one of the great sporting moments of my life. And believe it or not, this happened BEFORE the brilliant and one of my all-time favorite Web sites Deadspin called me "Estimable." My cup runneth over.

But, with no offense to the great Deadspin folks, this is even bigger to me. This, frankly, is as big as it gets. You know, sometimes when I speak to kids at schools and it becomes apparent that boredom has set in (this often can take as long as 49 seconds), I will throw out a little challenge. I will say, "Name your favorite sports star." And then I tell them if I have interviewed that person.

It's a trick question because, honestly, I've interviewed just about everybody they might mention. This is not bragging (well, OK, yeah it is, but that's not really my point here) ... it's just that when you are in the business or a while, you will one way or another come across most of the the biggest sports stars. I interviewed Michael Jordan when he just got out of college, for instance. I talked to Jeff Gordon as part of some sort of charity event. I sat next to Mickey Mantle at a celebrity baseball game. I went on a Negro Leagues Museum tour with Albert Pujols. I chatted with LeBron James at the Olympics. I have on many occasions stood around in a group and interviewed Tiger Woods. I spent a day with Hank Aaron. And so on.

Anyway, these brushes with greatness impress the kids way out of proportion -- I don't KNOW any of these athletes. The closest I've probably ever come to a truly great athlete involved the weekly chess matches I used to play against Priest Holmes. And I don't know him either ... For instance, I have absolutely no idea what is his motivation to come back to the Chiefs. Apparently he saw it in a dream. I wouldn't have guessed that.

Point is, meeting these great stars SOUNDS better to kids than it really is. I'm not being callous about it -- it still thrills me to watch Peyton Manning throw the football or to watch Barry Bonds hit or to see Roger Federer hit cross court-winners. It's just that meeting these people ... well, it's not bad, but it's just not as cool as I thought it would be when I was 10.

HOWEVER ... I was 10 once. And I had a hero. I have mentioned him on this site before. People sometimes seem to think I'm joking when I say that my hero was Cleveland Indians second baseman Duane Kuiper -- possibly because Kuiper hit only one home run in his career. But I am not joking. Duane Kuiper played second base. I wanted to play second base. Duane Kuiper dove for ground balls. I dove for ground balls. Duane Kuiper tried to bunt and slap his way on base; that's what I did too. I would have had a Kuiper poster on my wall, but they didn't make them. So I cut out pictures from the newspaper, put those on my wall. He was everything. I once tried to rank my all-time sports heroes ... as I do it now I would say the list looks like this:

1. Duane Kuiper
2. Brian Sipe
3. Buddy Bell
4. Ozzie Newsome
5. Earl Campbell (my only true non-Cleveland athlete crush as a kid)

Bernie Kosar and Cory Snyder would be on there too, but by the time I liked Bernie and Cory I was already in high school and college and should have known better.

Anyway, I was aware in a general way that Duane is now an announcer for the San Francisco Giants. But when I actually went to San Francisco to cover this Bonds chase, I never really put it together that I could meet my hero. It just didn't occur to me. At some point, seven or eight days in, my friend Mike Vaccaro said, "You should go over to the booth and meet Duane Kuiper."

And I thought: "Holy shmoly! [I often think using phrases like "Holy Shmoly!" and "Shazam!"] I really should."

And then I got nervous. Crazy, right? But this guy was my hero. This wasn't like going up to Johan Santana and asking him what pitch he threw in the seventh. That's work. This was a whole different thing. This was about meeting a childhood hero (I had the same inhibition when I finally met Ozzie Newsome. I really couldn't allow myself to feel that when Buddy Bell became manager of the Royals). Then I thought, "Hey, maybe I could do a column on Duane Kuiper. You know, here's the opposite of Barry Bonds, the guy who hit only one home run. And he's the one calling the games. That's great. That's how I'll do this."

So, of course, the next day Jayson Stark did that very column. So now I couldn't do that.

Sigh. I left San Francisco without going up to my hero Duane Kuiper. I'm a wimp, OK? I always was a wimp. That's one of the reasons why I got into this crazy journalism racket in the first place -- to give me a REASON to talk to people. I left San Francisco Monday morning, flew all day, landed in New York. I went to my hotel room, and checked my email.

You know what's coming, right? Yeah. There was an email from Duane Kuiper. It read like so (I don't think he'd mind me printing it):

Joe

You spent 9 days following Barry Bonds and not one time did you try to look me up. I have heard thru the grapevine that you were a Duane Kuiper fan growing up as a kid, if that story is really true...I would have loved to have met you. If you are headed to L.A. or San Diego please bother me, there's a short list of kids who idolized me. I'd like to meet them all.

Duane Kuiper

What can I say, folks? My career is made. My time as a sportswriter has not been in vain. Duane Kuiper emailed me. It's like being 10 again ...

Strangers on a plane

Editor's note: Here's a non-sports blog that I intended to post over the weekend but did not. The "maybe the coolest sports moment of my life" blog is coming at some point soon.

So I had this moment on an airplane. I was sitting in the front row window seat, bulkhead, when I noticed that there was this mother next to me with her two young children. She was trying to calm down the younger one; he was probably 2. He was giving her the look I’ve seen plenty of times with my own 2-year-old. He was not happy.

It amazes me now, looking back, how oblivious I would have been to this scene five or six years ago. I guess I always saw myself as someone who liked kids, the goofy friend of Dad’s who could juggle or make a quarter disappear and then pull it out of your ear. But it really does change when you have kids of your own; you are simply more attuned to that world, to the tenuous moods, to the extreme inconveniences, to the small kindnesses. You notice everything.

A few weeks ago, for instance, the Royals had to cancel their Fourth of July fireworks spectacular for technical reasons. Well, I got dozens of emails from angry fans who had waited all night with their kids for the show. I’m sure that a few years ago, I would have appreciated their anger, but it would not have moved me much. But now, having spent the THIRD of July chasing around my two daughters for three-plus hours just so they could see the fireworks show, well, I can tell you that if they had canceled that show I would have been looking for a lawyer.

ANYWAY, back to the plane, a man came up and tried to settle down the boy. It became apparent he was the father. He was talking to the boy, mussing his hair, holding him close, all those Dad things. Again, I may not have even noticed before, but I turned to him and said, “Excuse me, are you all together?”

“Yes,” he said. He did not seem to want to look at me.

“Well, you guys should be flying together. Where are you sitting?”

“Oh, you don’t want to do that,” he said. “I’m in a middle seat in the back.”

This was a pretty long flight – Milwaukee to San Francisco. I’m not trying to make myself into a hero here because, dammit, I really didn’t want to go back to some middle seat. In fact, I had stood in line to switch out of a middle seat in the first place. But what are you going to do? Separate a family on a four-hour flight? Come on. So I said, “Oh, that’s OK, I’ll go back.”

Well, you would have thought I had given this man my very own canteen in the Sahara. He was beyond thankful. He was – well, what’s a good word for “beyond thankful?” He was Bethankful. I honestly thought he was going to cry. He had not even considered asking me to move back numerous rows to sit in a middle seat … and I had volunteered. More than that, I had done it over his objections. Hey, I’m a good guy! It was as if I had given him reason to believe in mankind again. And for that moment walking back to the middle seat, I was the hero of the plane. People were slapping me on the back. The stewardesses offered me free drinks. I was Gandhi in India. I was Patton in Paris.

Of course, it did suck to sit in the middle seat. My good intentions didn’t prevent the idiot in front of me from reclining his seat all the way back into my spleen.

When the plane landed, I walked off and a different guy walked over to me.

He said: “You should be glad that you switched out of that seat. That kid was screaming the whole flight.”

Neutrality

Editor's note: Spent all day on a plane Monday getting from San Francisco to New York, so I didn't get to add to my world-record number of July posts. But I have a couple more posts today, including one a little later on about landing in New York and receiving one of the greatest sports thrills of my life. No kidding. It might be THE greatest sports thrill of my life. I'll tell you about it in a bit. In the meantime, here's some Blyleven/Santana stuff.

If I could take one indie baseball statistic and inject it into the popular culture, it might be Lee Sinins’ Neutral Wins and Neutral Losses. It also might not be. I’m going to be brutally honest with you here: I really haven’t put a whole lot of thought into this whole “what indie baseball stat would you inject into the popular culture” question.

But I do like Neutral Wins and Neutral Losses. These represent, as I understand it, a projection for the number of wins and losses a pitcher would have if given average run support. It’s an entirely imagined statistic – it doesn’t reflect what actually happened. Obviously you are giving pitchers wins when his team did not win, losses when his team did not lose, etc. But to me, it’s still telling.

I think of these a little bit like I think of those percentages they show for poker hands. Let’s say you’re playing Texas Hold ‘em, and you have a pair of aces. Well you go all in and someone calls you – even though (as we find out) he has the worst hand you can have. He has a 7 and a 2 off-suit. The odds will say that you have an 88 percent chance of winning the hand. Unfortunately, luck plays a large role in poker, which means that the moron who called you with a 7 and a 2 still has a 12 percent chance of winning, which means about one out of eight times he will beat your aces with his stupid 7 and 2..

If this happens to be one of those times, well, that 88 percent chance you had doesn’t mean squat. It’s not REALITY. You lost. Your money’s gone. But when reviewing what happened (as you would, again and again, over drinks with your buddies) that 88 percent is VERY telling. You did the right thing. You SHOULD have won. He SHOULD have lost. I’m not sure this example really explains what I’m trying to say, but as you know I like to bring up poker when I can, you know, since I am the One Random June Monday Morning Poker Champion of Tunica, Miss.

Anyway, this thought about Neutral Wins comes up because, as a couple of you mentioned comments, Johan Santana is having a great year. He is first in the league in hits allowed per nine, first in WHIP, first in shutouts (well tied for first … he has one), second in strikeouts, fourth in ERA, and he’s been his old amazing self lately (the last six weeks his ERA is 2.48, and the league is hitting .198 against him). I mean this is another dominant season for Santana. He’s still, I think, the best pitcher in the game.

Unfortunately, there are those who say he’s having an “off-year.” Why? His record is 11-8. That’s it. That’s why. Everybody by now understands, or should understand, that won-loss record is, well, not entirely meaningless (as Bill James says, if you have a choice between a guy who is 18-11 and a guy who is 12-14, and that’s the only information you have, you would always take the 18-11 pitcher) but certainly it can be very misleading. Everybody also knows the Twins can’t score runs. And yet, even while people understand that, they cannot get over a pitcher’s record. They just can’t.

And that’s why it would be great if people were just aware of neutral wins and neutral losses. It fills some gaps. Santana leads all of baseball with 13 neutral wins. His “neutral record” of 13-6 would make him the leading Cy Young candidate, which is exactly what he should be. Instead, the voters will look at won-loss record (they can’t help themselves) and choose someone inferior like C.C. Sabathia, who (though he is having a good year) isn’t close to Santana.

Because it has been a while since I’ve done a long blog (and also I’m on the long plane ride from San Francisco to New York) , I have listed here a few underappreciated years in baseball history (well, since 1920) using Neutral Wins and Neutral losses.

Dave Roberts, 1971
Actual record: 14-17
Neutral record: 22-9

Obviously, this is not the Dave Roberts who I’ve been watching play center field like a tourist stumbling through Chinatown looking vainly for the Hang Ah Tea Room. Holy cow. I have not broken down center fielders yet defensively, but I have to predict based entirely on visual evidence that Roberts will not score well. I mean, he’s fast and he seems like a generally cool guy and all that. But he also seems to be on an eight-second delay whenever the ball’s hit.

No, this Dave Roberts was a pitcher who in his fairly long career had a losing record, a below league average ERA and one magical season. Unfortunately, few realized just how magical it was because he had that losing record. But – get this – in 1971, Dave Roberts lost EIGHT GAMES where he pitched seven innings or more and allowed two earned runs or less. Those aren’t no decisions … I’m talking about eight games he lost pitching that well. He also had three no-decisions, including one where he went nine innings and gave up one run and another when he went eight innings and gave up one run.

Roberts did get a little Cy Young love because of his 2.10 ERA that year – he finished sixth in the voting, though he pitched better than three of the pitchers ahead of him. It’s hard to say he deserved to win the Cy Young Award, though. Ferguson Jenkins (neutral record, 24-13, 2.77 ERA) won the Cy Young that probably should gone to Tom Seaver (neutral record 23-7, 1.76 ERA).

Bert Blyleven, 1973
Actual record: 20-17
Neutral record: 26-11

We’ll have a lot of Blyleven in here for. He would be in the Hall of Fame, I believe, if people fully appreciated just how good he was in his prime. He finished an absurd seventh in the Cy Young voting in ‘73, though he led all of baseball with those 26 neutral wins and was second in the league in both ERA and strikeouts. Jim Palmer, who won the Cy Young, actually had one hell of a year too. And John Hiller had one of the great relief pitching seasons in baseball history – maybe the best. He won 10 games, saved 38, pitched 125 innings, had a 1.44 ERA. Still Blyleven was sensational.

The point is that if voters understood and appreciated that Blyleven was more than just some guy who hung around for a long time, if they understood and appreciated that he had a prime that was as good as most pitchers in the Hall of Fame, I think he would be there himself.

Randy Johnson, 2004
Actual record: 16-14
Neutral record: 22-8

Randy Johnson finished second in the Cy Young voting to Roger Clemens this year, and I’m guessing that this was entirely and completely because of their won-loss records. Johnson was 16-14. Clemens was 18-4. But if voters had looked at Neutral Wins and Losses along with other statistics, it would blatantly obvious who had the better year.

Johnson: 22-8, 2.60 ERA, 290 strikeouts, 50 Runs Saved Against Average
Clemens: 15-7, 2.98, 218 strikeouts, 32 Runs Saves Against Average

This might be the clearest example in recent years where the significantly better pitcher was snubbed simply because of his won-loss record. Apparently not enough people stopped to realize that OF COURSE their won-loss records were different. Johnson played on a 111-loss Arizona team, Clemens played on a 92-win Houston team.

Sam McDowell, 1968
Actual record: 15-14
Neutral record: 21-8

From 1968 to 1971, McDowell’s records were as follows:
15-14, 1.81 ERA
18-14, 2.94 ERA
20-12, 2.92 ERA
13-17, 3.40 ERA

And his neutral records were as follows:
21-8, 1.81 ERA
18-14, 2.94 ERA
22-10, 2.92 ERA
16-14, 3.40 ERA

So, in reality McDowell was nine games over .500, which is nothing special. And people called him a “hard luck” pitcher, but people rarely mean that as a compliment. Generally, hard luck pitchers are viewed as flawed – as if low-scoring teammates are partly their fault, as if they should somehow DO something about losing 2-1 and 3-2 games, as if they somehow lack intestinal fortitude because they can’t their fastball with a little more life and get their curveball to drop an extra two inches when their own hitters can’t score.

But McDowell’s neutral record over that time period was 31 games over .500, which is very special – only Fergie Jenkins, Tom Seaver, Bob Gibson and Gaylord Perry were better over those four years.

Gaylord Perry, 1972
Actual record: 24-16
Neutral record: 29-11

Perry won the Cy Young Award this year – so it’s hard to say that he was underrated. However, he was. By Neutral Wins, this is the best pitching season by anybody in the last 50 years.

Most neutral wins since 1957

1. Gaylord Perry, 1972, 29
2. Sandy Koufax, 1966, 28
3. Steve Carlton, 1972, 27
4. Bert Blyleven, 1973, 26
(tie) Wilbur Wood, 1971, 26
(tie) Denny McLain, 1968, 26
(tie) Bob Gibson, 1968, 26
(tie) Juan Marichal, 1965, 26

So there you have it, some of the acknowledged greatest years in pitching history – there’s Gibson ’68, Koufax ’66, McLain ’68, Marichal ’65. And Gaylord’s year – my first baseball memory is of going to see Perry pitch this year – was as good or better than any of them. You will notice again, Blyleven fans, that his 1973 season is up there too. We’ll come back to Blyleven again.

Jack Morris, 1992
Actual record: 21-6
Neutral record: 13-14

I have become, among friends, something of a crank when it comes to Jack Morris and the Hall of Fame. I can’t help it. I simply cannot accept the myth that has built around this guy. The myth goes that Morris was a gamer, a winner, the kind of pitching warrior who would allow two runs when his team scored three and give up seven runs when his team scored eight, a warrior, etc. Morris already had that reputation when he pitched that amazing Game 7 of the 1991 World Series, and this performance forged the myth in steel (much in the same way that the “Derek Jeter is always in the right place” myth became truth the day Jeremy Giambi didn’t slide”).

There have been studies that show this, “Jack Morris gave up two when you scored three” theory to be, in the delicate British phrase, complete crap. But the myth goes on. Morris never had a sub-3.00 ERA. He never had a season with 20 neutral wins. It’s so weird that so many of the voters who deny Blyleven because they believe he was never a great pitcher are willing to support Jack Morris, who really never was.

And now we’ll look at a few careers:

-- Bob Friend
Career record: 197-230
Neutral record: 228-199

I’m telling you right now that Bob Friend was every bit as good and perhaps a better pitcher than Jack Morris.

-- Bert Blyleven
Career record: 287-250
Neutral record: 313-224

Since the deadball era ended, there have been 10 pitchers with 300-plus neutral wins. All of them are in the Hall of Fame (or will be soon – Clemens and Maddux are on the list) except for Blyleven.

From 1970-1977, Blyleven’s neutral record is better than his actual record every single season. I think Bill James once did a little study to see if Blyleven’s own pitching tendencies were at least partly responsible for the bad luck, and he came out of the study with a strong feeling, if I remember correctly, that it was “not entirely impossible.” So there you go. Still, the numbers are striking.

Blyleven’s actual records:
1970: 10-9
1971: 16-15
1972: 17-17
1973: 20-17
1974: 17-17
1975: 15-10
1976: 13-16
1977: 14-12

Over this eight-year stretch, he saved an astounding 233 runs against average (third for that time period behind Tom Seaver and Jim Palmer – and not to beat this dead Morris again, but Jack Morris saved 78 runs in his ENTIRE CAREER). He was just nine games over .500

His neutral records tell a very different story:
1970: 11-8
1971: 19-12
1972: 20-14
1973: 26-11
1974: 22-12
1975: 16-9
1976: 12-8
1977: 17-12

OK, that’s 57 games over .500. He was a great pitcher! He really was! Dammit, listen to me voters!

-- Jack Morris
Career record: 254-186
Neutral record: 232-208

Well, you knew that was coming. Of course Morris-heads will use this to say it PROVES their point – see how many more games he won than he should have? He was a gamer! A warrior! You can’t beat these guys.

-- Wilbur Wood
Career record: 164-156
Neutral record: 185-135

Wood is the darling of neutral wins and losses. From 1968-1975, Wood had 159 neutral wins, behind only Gaylord Perry and Fergie Jenkins. In there he had a 26-neutral win season and two 25 neutral win seasons.

-- Lew Burdette
Career record: 203-144
Neutral record: 173-174

According to Sinins’ encyclopedia, Burdette won 200 games despite allowing 30 more runs in his career than the average pitcher.

Brilliant reader updates: One of you talked about Orel Hershiser 1988 vs. Orel Hershiser 1989. Very shrewd comparison.

Hershiser in 1988
Real record: 23-8, 2.26 ERA.
Neutral stats: 22-9 40 Runs Saves Against Average

Hershiser in 1989
Real record: 15-15, 2.31 ERA
Neutral stats: 19-11, 25 Runs Saves Against Average.

He was better in 1988, but the difference is not as wide as appears by the win-loss record.

And our resident Cubbie asked about Fergie Jenkins. I'm surprised but his stats are not significantly altered in the neutral environment. From 1967-73, he went 141-100 for the Cubs, and won 20 or more six of the seven years.

Going neutral, he went 146-95. He had 20 neutral wins or more five of the seven years.

Over his career, Jenkins actual record was 284-226. His neutral record was 291-219.